Ghost Stories and Creepy Crawlies(Aren't Funny When They're Real)
by ChloeWeird
Summary: When John gets stuck on a hunt, Dean and Sam are left to fend for themselves. Sam and Dean go "camping" rather than have Dean pay a terrible price. (Attempted solicitation of a minor. John Winchester's A Parenting.) Sam is 10 and Dean is 14.


Ghosts were harder to draw than anyone in Sam's 4th grade class thought. Although Sam had never actually seen one for real, his brother and his dad told him that they never wore sheets, or looked like Casper. Dean said they looked like people, just less solid. So, to anyone else, the lines Sam traced in the patch of fogged-up motel window would just look like a stick person. But Sam knew it was a ghost.

He imagined it was the one his Dad was chasing, two counties over. Dad hadn't told him anything about it, but he'd listened hard from the other side of the door when he'd told Dean that it was "downright peaceful for a spirit," and that Dean would be fine looking after Sam for a couple of days while he took care of it, since he was 14 and all.

That had been two weeks ago.

Sam leaned on his elbows and peered through the smudgy lines in the whitish patch, and tried to see his brother and the super talking across the parking lot. Dean had had that real stern look when he'd told Sam to stay inside, so he wouldn't peek his head out the door, but if he pressed his ear to the cool glass, and stared hard at their angry gestures and frowny faces, he could pretend that he knew what they were talking about.

 _"_ _Just a couple days more,"_ Dean might be saying, as he plucked at the ragged hole in the pocket of his jeans.

 _"_ _You said that on Wednesday,"_ the guy might say back, since it was true. It didn't make his stupid face less stupid to be telling the truth.

Sam watched them, translating their words like Dean and him sometimes do with cheesy Spanish soap operas. His ear was starting to get a bit cold, but it still beat flicking through the three channels on the black and white TV.

Outside, Dean slouched and put his hands into his back pockets and even though Sam couldn't see all of his face, he didn't need to wonder if Dean was pulling his puppy dog eyes on the xuper. Sam snorted and almost tapped on the window to tell Dean to knock it off. His puppy dog eyes never worked as well as he thought. Even Dad had tried to warn him that now that he was a teenager and was growing out of his baby face, he wouldn't get the reaction he was looking for. Sam wasn't totally sure what Dad meant by that, but it sure seemed to be working right now.

The super stopped scowling, then reached his hand out and gripped Dean's shoulder. It wasn't like how Dad sometimes proudly slapped their shoulders so hard they winced. It was more like how the high school girls Dean hung out with after school would squeeze his arm and tell him how strong he was, like he didn't already know. Sam watched the way the guy let his hand trail all the way down to Dean's elbow before he stuck his hand back in his belt loop.

Dean didn't do anything for a minute. He didn't even move, which was weird, since he was always moving, especially when he was mad, even just bouncing on his heels until Dad told him to _take a walk, you're bothering me._ He just stood there looking at the ground until the super reached into his pocket and pulled out a white square. Probably a room key, Sam thought, and he peeled his face off the window.

But Dean didn't take the key. He snatched his hand out of the super's reach when the man tried to press it into his palm, then turned to stomp back toward their room.

Sam scurried away from the window and threw himself on the bed, reaching for the remote. He'd barely got the TV on when he heard the beep of the door unlocking, and the sound of the doorknob slamming into the wall.

"What are you watching?" Dean asked, squinting at the screen.

Sam had no idea. It sounded like French, maybe, and there were multi-coloured blob people singing to a rubber duck on a stick.

"Uh," he stalled.

"Whatever." Dean kicked the door shut and switched off the high-pitched voices on the tube. "Get your shoes on, we're leaving."

"What?" He sat up from the pillows and watched as Dean started to throw their stuff into Dad's old camo backpack. "I thought you were gonna get us a couple more days."

"Well, I didn't. I mean it, put on your shoes, then finish the rest of that milk in the fridge. I don't wanna waste it." Dean slung the backpack on to the rickety kitchen table, then started grabbing their supplies from the cupboard and shoving them into the top, probably squishing the Wonder bread.

Sam got up from the bed, slowly, and reached under it to get his sneakers. "How's Dad gonna find us? He said not to—"

"Don't worry about it. I'll call him from a pay phone."

"I thought this was the cheapest place in town. Are we hitchhiking to the next one?"

"No."

"Then, where are we going?"

Dean slammed the jar of Nesquick onto the counter, hard enough to make Sam jump. "I don't _know_ , Sammy! Give me a goddamn minute, okay?"

Dean sat down in the only chair next to the table and put his head in his hands. Sam wasn't sure what to say as he watched his brother screwed his eyes shut and tugged at his hair.

It was getting long. When he got back, Dad would probably take them both to a barber in Wal-Mart for a buzz cut, even though Sam wished he could keep his hair long. He liked the way it sat flat on his head, and running his fingers through it reminded him of the way the wife of the landlord in a tiny apartment in Oregon had patted his head whenever she'd invite them both for cookies after school. That had been two summers ago.

Dean sighed loudly, then scrubbed a hand over the shoulder the Super had touched. Sam was just about to ask again about what they were going to do when Dean stood up and pulled the drawstring of the backpack closed.

"We're going camping," he said, in a weird, soft voice. "The desk guy gave me directions to a camp site near here."

"Okay," Sam said, slowly. They hadn't been camping since the first time they'd stayed in Ohio. Sam had only been six, so he didn't remember much, but he knew Dean still had a little scar from where a marshmallow had caught fire and exploded on his hand.

"Here." Dean wadded up a flat sheet from one of the beds, and handed it to Sam. "Can you fit this in your school bag?"

It was a tight fit, but he could just get it zipped over the fabric. While he struggled with the bag, Dean glanced around to see if they'd left anything.

"Go get that milk from the fridge," Dean ordered, and Sam decided not to argue, even though he hated skim.

When he closed the door of the tiny cooler, he turned to leave, but Dean held up a hand, then put a finger to his lips. Sam stayed quiet while Dean opened to door, and stuck just his head out. He could hear his brother's quick, shallow breaths all the way from across the room.

After a minute, Dean stepped back inside and motioned for Sam to come closer. He waited outside the door while Dean grabbed the backpack from the table. When Dean emerged, he also had one of the pillows, and the scratchy comforter that Sam had kicked to the floor the first night.

When the door shut behind them for the last time, he thought that Dean would make Sam run, so that they didn't get caught sneaking out on their bill, but his brother seemed frozen. He followed Dean's eyes to the office across the lot and the attendant snoring in the desk chair. They stood silently for a few moments, the only movement the brush of Dean's thumb on the pilled felt of the stolen blanket.

Sam didn't like the look in his big brother's eyes. It looked the same as when Dean had to choose between having something to put on their bread for dinner and paying the bill on their crappy Nokia.

"Dean." He grabbed his brother's hand, wrinkling his nose at the film of sweat gathered in his palm. Dean looked down at him, that weird look leaving his face, replaced by his usual stupid grin.

"Let's go, Sammy."

The motel was on the edge of the small town they'd landed in. There was only one road back to the Interstate, and Dean started walking down it. It was September, so it wasn't as hot as it had been the last time they'd had to walk along a dusty road, but it was still warm enough that there was a fuzzy strip of heat in the distance. There was a narrow strip of shade on the other side of the street, cast by a thickening line of pine trees, but Dad had told them always to walk into traffic so you can see them, so they kept to the sunny side.

The two inches of milk in the bottom of the carton were warm by the time Sam remembered to drink it, and it made his mouth feel gummy and gross. He turned the empty cardboard around in his hands.

"Will there be a garbage at the camp site?"

"I dunno." Dean didn't turn around. He was too busy watching a car go past them. "Probably not."

He felt guilty, but he really didn't want to carry the carton all the way to where ever the place was, so he tossed it in the ditch with the other trash. For a while, as they walked, he thought about going back to get it, but Dean was walking too quickly. Thinking about the carton and how long it would take to decompose ended up distracting him from the walking, and when Dean stopped in front of him, he realized that it was almost dark.

"We're here," Dean said, and nodded toward the forest that had been getting steadily larger as they'd walked.

"Really?" It didn't look like much. "Where's the sign?"

Dean shifted the backpack and tossed the pillow at Sam's face. "It must have fallen down. It's fine, shut up."

Dean helped him climb down into the ditch and over a bag of trash into the trees. They only walked about five minutes more until they found a space of ground that was pretty clean. They almost had to empty out the whole backpack to find the rope Dad made them carry in the emergency pack, but it didn't take too long to tie it between two trees. The sheet from Sam's bag was a bit crumpled, but they ended up with something that looked like the tents he'd seen in cartoons, the ones that billowed and sank when the characters snored.

Dean used a lighter to toast saltines from the pack they had left, and even though they kind of tasted weird, it was cool to eat them warm and extra crispy like they'd been over a real fire.

The mosquitos were mostly gone by this time of year, and it wasn't too cold, so they sat on a fallen log beside their tent for a long time, looking at the stars and trying to remember ghost stories they'd heard. They were kind of ruined, though, by the fact that they both knew how real the stories could be. Dean ended up just telling Sam stories about Mom, and about what Dad had been like before the fire.

Sam's eyes started to droop halfway though a story he'd heard a million times, about the night that he'd been born. After he almost fell off the log, Dean folded the scratchy blanket in half, and they both crawled on top of it, turning on their sides so that they could also share the pillow.

In the morning, Dean would use his last quarters to call their Dad, and they wouldn't have to spend a second night in the forest, even though Sam secretly wanted to.

In a few years, Sam would join Eagle Scouts for a couple of months, and it was during one of their camping trips that he would remember the sound of Dean's wet, ragged breath on his neck. But then, he'd remember the feeling of warmth on his back, and the absolute certainty that nothing that went bump in the night could get past the iron hold of his big brother's arms.


End file.
